Revelation 21:1-8
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
If you have your Bibles let me invite you to open with me to the book of Revelation chapter 21.
As you turn there, I want to contemplate two questions…,
number 1 - Do you look forward to heaven?
number 2 - Does your hope for heaven affect your life today?
In the introduction of Pastor Matt Mucullough’s new book “Remember Heaven”
He argues that because we live in a world that is:
More insulated from the reality of death than ever before,
More secular than ever before,
And more distracted than ever before,
We are also a people who think about heaven the least compared to those who have gone before us.
Rather than being a focal point upon which we set our minds…,
Heaven is to many of us like our car insurance is to us…,
We know we need it…,
We want to make sure we have it..,
But we don’t really want to think about it unless we have to…,
We had much rather be pre-occupied with driving the car…,
rather than thinking about the need to repair it one day…,
But does that describe your relationship to the concept of heaven?
Is it something you’d rather not think about?
Or is it to you like it is to our sweet sister Mrs. Millie Chenevert…,
She is one of the older st. Rose members who joined the church planting team in going to Bridgedale.
I have known her for over a decade and all the years I have known her…, she has verbally and regularly expressed her longing for heaven….
So much so that she would often warn me… saying,
“I plan to come to prayer service tonight…, but if I’m not there, I’m probably in heaven…,”
For Millie, thinking about heaven, has helped her persevere on earth..,
And I think it is for that very reason that Revelation 21 is in our Bibles.
Many of the Christians in first century Roman empire found themselves living and enduring in a hostile world...,
Jesus acknowledges their difficulties at the beginning of the book…,
2 “ ‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance...
9 “ ‘I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
13 “ ‘I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is. Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.
God knows what kind of world we are living in with all of its trials, tribulations, and suffering…,
God knows your suffering..,
but God also knows what we need to persevere, and to endure, and to keep the faith until the end…,
we need a healthy, robust, full, beautiful picture of what we have been promised…,
We need the hope of heaven…,
One thing that human beings cannot live without is some kind of hope…,
We need some kind of something to look forward to beyond our present miseries.
Its hope that keeps us going,
keeps us plodding,
keeps us enduring,
some people put their hope in more money in the future that will usher in the abundant life they long for,
some people put their hope in a relationship,
or a particular kind of career that gives us a sense of purpose,
Or a retirement from that career that gives them rest
or an accomplishment,
or a living condition in a particularly beautiful or pleasant place…,
all of humanity is living day by day off of their variously manufactured hopes in a future situation that they believe will be better than their present situation…,
but Christians have a stronger,
bigger,
longer lasting,
irrevocable kind of hope….
1 Peter 1:3 calls it a living hope.
Thats the kind of hope that I think Revelation 21 and 22 was written to provide…,
It is source material for our hoping, and enduring, and persevering to the end.
lets read.
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
6 And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.
7 The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.
8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
Lets Pray
What is the Hope of heaven?
And by hope, I don’t mean, the kind of uncertain wishing something may happen…,
Like you hope the saints have a better season this year.
By hope…, I mean…, what promises are we putting our trust in…,
What has God promised for those whose name is written in the book of life?
#1 New Creation
#1 New Creation
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”
When I was little, as I am sure is the case for many,
heaven sounded somewhat boring…
I imagined it to be a cosmic choir practice in the sky,
where all we did was sing in white robes floating on clouds…,
but there are a couple things wrong with my elementary expectations…,
first was my low view of the majesty of God…, as if I could grow weary of worshipping him.
but the secondly, I did not understand the fullness of whats actually been promised to us…,
We do not hope in a future disembodied spiritual existence in the clouds somewhere in a place called heaven..,
What we hope in
is a future resurrection of not only our own physical bodies…,
but a resurrection and restoration of the created world as we know it…,
Heaven comes down and transforms earth.
The old creation passes away as it once existed,
And is replaced by something new.
John sees a new heaven and a new earth with no sea in it…,
But this doesn’t mean that scuba diving is out in the new heavens and new earth…,
the sea has been a symbolic source for the emergence of evil in the book of Revelation…,
the sea is where the evil beasts from earlier visions emerged…,
its the place from which enemy armies invade,
the sea was a place of danger, dread, chaos, and very often death..,
but John sees a new creation without corruptions.
Think about how beautiful the world is in which we live in now.
Even in corruption,
the grand canyon will leave you speechless,
the great mountains, and lakes, and waterfalls, and forests of the world proclaim the glory of God…,
but as beautiful as it is…,
creation remains dangerous to us…,
it is full of hostile animals, and plants, and destructive storms and earthquakes and harsh temperatures.
On Monday night I sat in the Saint Charles Parish council meeting where for three hours we talked about drainage infrastructure…,
We are literally spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year just fighting the forces of nature to live here in this community without being swallowed up by rising water.
And don’t waste your time imagining that everywhere else has it easier…,
we could be fighting 10 feet of snow,
or destructive tornadoes,
or earthquakes,
Or drought…
this is just the human experience since the fall of mankind…
God told Adam it would be this way because of sin…,
17 ….cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
This is our reality in the corrupted creation we inhabit.…,
but this is the curse Jesus took on himself…,
Jesus entered into creation,
he wore a crown of thorns pressed upon his head…,
he sweat great drops of blood on the ground...,
he died and was buried in the dust of the earth.
and he resurrected to new life with a promise that because he took the curse on himself…,
he would reverse the curse that plagues creation
We have been promised the hope of heaven…, not as a place of disembodied spiritual experience…,
but heaven on earth
without the thorns and thistles…,
full of beauty,
and glory,
and endless potential for our enjoyment…,
Our eternal existence is not so much about us floating up into a heavenly spiritual realm…,
but rather it is heaven descending upon the created order
and perfecting it
for our eternal enjoyment.
all the good gifts of God in this world, -
family, and friends, and feasting, and the world cup…,
every good gift in the created order will be made new and perfect in the world to come.
For our eternal enjoyment…,
We will experience all of God’s good gifts perfectly
without being tempted to idolize them over God the giver of those gifts.
What are we looking forward to?
What is the hope of heaven?
#1 New Creation
#2 God’s Presence
#2 God’s Presence
This is the best part of this new creation
it will be a place where humanity no longer feels separation from their God.
We will get to enjoy God’s good gifts in perfect worship and perfect relationship with God.
One of the children here at St. Rose asked their mother recently…,
“Why is God in heaven and we are here on Earth?”
Its a really good question.
If God loves us and created us, why is there a separation between God and man?
The answer, again, goes back to the garden of Eden..,
God is described as walking in the cool of the garden with Adam and Eve.
But once they sinned against God.., the separation between God and man began…,
Adam and Eve hid themselves from God…,
and God cast them from his presence…,
After that...,
the Old Testament story shows God’s presence being relegated to a tabernacle
and later a temple
that only priests could enter
And only once a year
and only through blood sacrifice.
The temple was constructed so that a big tall veil separated God’s presence from man’s presence.
But when Jesus came, he claimed to be something better than the temple…,
According to John in John chapter 1…, Jesus came to dwell or “tabernacle” among us…,
He came to be a living breathing temple of God’s presence in a human body…,
He came to be God’s presence with us and to be the perfect sacrifice to open the way for us to be in God’s presence forever…,
When Jesus died on the cross…,
The veil in that temple was torn from top to bottom…,
Signaling that a way had now been made for humanity to enter God’s presence again…,
When we put faith in Jesus, the Spirit of God seals us, and empowers us, until acquire the fullness of our inheritance in the presence of God.
Now, Revelation 21 is a foretelling of the day where finally and unto experiential fullness…,
God’s presence will descend upon the earth
Listen to the language of verses 2 and 3.
2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
There are all kinds of layers of imagery here.
The holy city, new Jerusalem, is also called the bride that has been adorned for her husband..,
We know from earlier in Revelation and from the testimony of the whole bible…,
That the bride is the church of the living God…,
The final day of Christs return will be like that of a wedding day…,
where the bride is presented as glorious and beautiful….,
And the husband…, that is Christ Jesus…,
and the bride…, which is the church will live happily ever after…,
a few weeks ago in our exposition of Revelation 19…,
we saw that the whole story of the Bible could be told in this way…,
That Christ came to pay the bridal price when he died on the cross,
that he betrothed himself to the church,
he left to prepare a place for her,
And for her to prepare for the final wedding day,
and on the last day the church, meaning all the believers in Jesus, will be reconciled to him in relational harmony forever.
the last day is the marriage day…,
and the every day after is the blessed covenant relationship with our God.
Where he provides for us, is present with us, and will never leave us.
John sees the final day bride.., the full church of God’s people…,
He also calls it a city, new Jerusalem.
A city coming down from the heavenly places.,
This is the hole host of God’s people who have gone before us, now descending with God to inhabit the new creation ..
The city represents a people and a home where God now dwells in the midst of human society.
As a side note, this has nothing to do with the physical piece of land we call Jerusalem…,
But rather this is the fulfillment of everything that was foreshadowed in God’s promises to Israel…,
This new heavens and new earth is the fullness of the promised land that God had promised to the faithful Israelites who would put their trust in the Messiah…,
It is even better than they ever could have imagined…,
The promises to faithful Israel are now expanded to include all peoples from all nations from every tribe and every tongue…,
And it is a land without borders,
A land that consumes all of creation itself…
A land where God’s people never have to experience separation from God again..,
The word for “dwelling place” in verse 3 is quite literally the “tabernacle place”
So all of creation will become God’s temple that was promised.
No physical temple needed or included in the end times scene…,
We will see this re-emphasized in our text next week…
And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.
We look forward to a day where all separation between us and God is removed..,
We look forward to a day where we have pure, unhindered, fellowship with the eternally glorious God, creator, and savior of our souls.
The best thing, about heaven…, will be the God of heaven finally and fully reconciled to us.
There is a personal and relational touch to this vision even in the way that God himself wipes the tears from the faces of his people.
4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
#1 New Creation
#2 God’s Presence
#3 Suffering’s Absence
#3 Suffering’s Absence
John lived in a day where there were certainly tears being shed under the oppressive persecution of the Roman Empire..
He himself was seeing this vision from and island of exile..,
Yet here God meets him with a vision of a day…, where God himself will wipe the tears from humanity…,
And invite them into an existence which will no longer include any of the world’s corruptions.
The new creation will be a place free from all the things that sin brought into the world…,
We will have no reason to cry, or mourn, or hurt, or die…,
As we saw last week,
Even death itself as a concept will be cast into the lake of fire..,
And we will enter into a kind of existence so good that our past sufferings will pale in comparison.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,
WE have this hope of heaven…
And there is a sense in which the more we do suffer in this world…,
The more we grieve in the brokenness of it…,
The more we set our eyes upon the world to come…,
The more we join creation in longing for that future day where we are free from the sufferings of this passing away world.
Listen to how the corruptions and the sufferings of our present moment increase our hope and longing for heaven.
19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
We hope for what we do not see,
We wait for it with patience..,
Suffering in this life increases our hope,
Our longing,
Our desire,
For the heaven we have been promised.
But its not just the blatant suffering, and sickness, and sorrow that should do this in our hearts…,
Its also just the dissatisfaction we feel even with the good gifts of creation…,
One of the most frustrating things about our sin stricken selves in this sin stricken world…,
Is that we have these desires that are actually unsatisfiable…
We feel like we are missing something,
We feel like there is something in this created world that could somehow fill the gap, scratch the itch, satisfy the longing.
We think, there must be a greater more fulfilling joy in this world, and thus we spend most of our lives trying to fix our pretty constant discontentment.
We buy new things trying to fix it,
We move new places,
We search and search and search for a spouse,
Only to find that my discontentedness did not change when we finally find one,
We strive for a certain level of security,
Or accomplishment,
Or comfort,
Or experience…,
And then we realize.., it did not deliver the soul satisfaction we want…,
I feel this deeply even when I consider the best things about my life..,
I will often have moments with my kids..,
Laughing and playing with them..,
Where the stinging reality of how temporary this moment is will just hit me..,
They are little like this for such a short time…,
So even the best kinds of joys in this life…,
are tainted by the fear of losing them,
or the knowledge that they are passing from us too quickly
We are a people, therefore, that no matter how hard we try…, the dissatisfaction remains.
What hope do we have?
What is the hope of heaven?
#1 New Creation
#2 God’s Presence
#3 Suffering’s Absence
#4 Eternal Satisfaction
#4 Eternal Satisfaction
6 And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.
Through the prophet Jeremiah, God describes the sin of humanity in this way…
for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water.
In other words, humanity’s sin is a rejection of God thinking they can find soul satisfaction elsewhere…,
King David in his Psalms regularly acknowledges that what his soul really thirsts for is not more power, or wealth, or relationships..,
But rather his deepest desires are for what only God can provide.
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
1 As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
It is the back drop of these Old Testament pictures that Jesus meets with the woman at teh well who has sought satisfaction through multiple men…,
And he says to her…,
13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
This is the message he proclaims when he stands up among all the feasting and gives this announcement.
37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ”
All of our discontentment cannot and will not be fixed by any circumstantial change in this life…,
We will find contentment only in turning our eyes upon Jesus…,
And hoping for the day where we will eternally drink from the spring of the water of life without payment.
Heaven will be a place absent of suffering..,
But also absent of our discontentment..,
It will be like drinking in cold refreshing water for the first time since wondering in the desert wilderness our whole lives..,
And we will never be thirsty again..,
What is the hope of heaven?
#1 New Creation
#2 God’s Presence
#3 Suffering’s Absence
#4 Eternal Satisfaction
But there is one more element to the hope of heaven that will be emphasized several times in these final chapters.
#5 Complete Purification
#5 Complete Purification
The New Haven’s and the New Earth will be inhabited by people..,
Real people..,
And that fact alone.., may cause you to wonder whether heaven can really be as perfect as I am making it out to be.
It will be inhabited by people…,
But only those whose name is written in the book of life…,
Only those who placed their faith in Jesus,
Have had their sins forgiven…,
And in the end have been transformed and fitted for this new heavens and new earth.
The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.
The book of Revelation has consistently made a distinction between true believers in Christ…, and imposters.
he calls them conquerors..,
These are those who kept the faith through the spiritual war of this life,
Those who were transformed by the gospel of Jesus they believed in,
Those who trusted Christ to the end..,
At the end of time.., those who put their hope in Christ,
They will have this heritage,
This inheritance,
For they are part of the family of God..,
And they will forever be like a son to the living God.
Other texts of Scripture clarify the doctrine of salvation for us…,
When we place faith in Jesus we become spiritually alive,
We begin to repent of our sin though we still struggle with it,
And we look forward to a day when we see Jesus face to face and the sin in us is totally and entirely eradicated and conquered by the grace of God.
This is why we often say that for the Christian…,
Our fight against sin is ultimately a conquering…,
It is a winning battle..,
For one day we will be in his presence and we will be sinless..,
John says it this way in 1 John.
2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
Today we fight sin..,
But one day we will see him, and be as he is.
We will conquer by virtue of his conquering..,
So heaven will be a place where we exist without our sin nature!
But what about those who never trusted Christ?
Who never repented?
Who never fought their sin in faith, but only succumbed to it and made friends with it?
For heaven to be heaven…,
All sinners must either be forgiven and transformed,
Or cast out of the new heavens and the new earth..,
Verse 8 is provided here…,
not necessarily as a warning to unbelievers.., (though it certainly does that)
but this serves as a reassurance that the sinful ways of humanity will have no place in the new heavens and the new earth…,
8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
No sin will be found in heaven…,
And no one who has not been forgiven and transformed from their sin will be permitted to enter.
This gets emphasized again later.
27 But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
3 No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.
Heaven will be a place of complete purification…
With no threat of it ever being corrupted again..,
Conclusion:
Let me circle back to the questions I asked at the beginning:
Do you look forward to heaven?
Do you look forward to heaven?
If you are NOT a Christian…,
You don’t have to wonder whether you will go to heaven or not?
As we said last week…,
Entrance into heaven is not performance based..,
The question is whether your name is written in the Lamb’s book of life..,
The question is whether you have repented of your sin
and trusted Jesus, the son of the living God who lived and died and rose again to pay for your sins and welcome you into God’s presence.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
You can be certain of heaven through faith in him.
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
If you are a Christian…,
Have you gotten so attached to this world that the promise of heaven no longer brings you joy or security?
Paul tells us to
Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
The second question was this:
Does your hope for heaven affect your life today?
Does your hope for heaven affect your life today?
This chapter was not given to simply satisfy our curiosity..,
It was given to help John endure the island of Patmos..,
It was given to help the churches endure the persecution of Rome…,
It was given to help you…
The doctrine of future glory is supposed to grab on to the future promises
and pull the joy of them into our present moment.
This is what the believers in the book of Hebrews were doing when they faced persecution.
34 For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. 35 Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.
Do you see how the hope of heaven brings contentment into our lives when there should be none…,
It is the hope our souls need.
And it is why God has given us this scripture..
This is where I end..,
Look back at Revelation 21:5
5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
The God of heaven graciously commanded that these descriptions of heaven be written down…,
Why?
For your sake…,
God’s Word helps us to set our minds on things above..,
So that the joy of future promises…,
May be pulled into our present moment…,
Until they are experienced in fullness when we see God face to face..,
If you want one simple takeaway this morning..,
Read your Bible…,
With the aim of setting your mind on future glory…,
So that even today you might live in the fullness of joy.
The greatest remedy to your discontentedness,
discouragements,
depressions,
And anxieties,
The greatest remedy is a greater degree of heavenly mindedness…
Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Lets pray.
